


Buttercup Fields

by Winterstar



Category: White Collar
Genre: Blood, Gen, Language, Sickness, and vomiting., touch of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-12
Updated: 2012-05-12
Packaged: 2018-04-03 02:32:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4083316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterstar/pseuds/Winterstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trapped in a hostage situation, Peter and Neal wait for rescue while Neal falls victim to an infection. For the hiding serious injury square on my dark bingo card.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Buttercup Fields

The fever burns images into his brain, yet at the same time he wanders and knows he teeters on reality. All about him are fields of buttercups – long lazy stems reaching to the sky. They are frail things, with their thin stems and low green leaves. He walks through the meadows and realizes the buttercups surround him like fields of sunrays touching the earth. He smiles, this is what summer is about, this is what warmth and love is. He finally understands it.

When he goes to step forward, his feet cannot move. He looks down and there are thousands of those fragile stems twisted around his ankles, covering his bare feet. He cannot remember taking off his shoes. It is then he sees that he only has on a pair of low slung jeans and nothing else. He tugs and yanks but the buttercups imprison him. A cool wind shivers over him and he closes his arms in a self-embrace. Clouds swarm over the sky like a plague of locusts. He sees lightening flicker in the distance and the flowers around him glitter and shine in a strange paradox of sunlight. They grow to enormous heights until they dwarf him and he can see nothing but the flash of lightening through their yellow petals. The vines twine around him, tying him, capturing him until he staggers to the ground and the blanket of leaves covers him. He smothers and suffocates as the carpet of flowers disappears overhead.

*oOo*

Peter calls to him to follow and he ignores the scrape along the taper of his waist, near his hip. They are hidden inside what can only be described as a wall. They found the jagged hole behind the refrigerator and squirmed into the space between the walls of the room. The narrow space affords them little ability to even breathe. When Neal presses Peter to shift forward, Peter shakes his head and shushes him with the barest of movements.

Someone is in the room. Neal hears the distinct click of a weapon being loaded and cocked. This wasn’t supposed to be a gun fight; it wasn’t even supposed to be a confrontation of any kind. Peter and Neal were to address the victim of a mortgage fraud case. Instead, they are hiding in the walls of the newest short sale house with holes gouged in the walls and a cache of weapons stacked in the dining room. They were only going to survey the house and check on the claims of the original owner of the house.

Stuck in the walls of the house, Neal feels something poke into his side and realizes the long rusted nail from the wall has torn his jacket. He curses but doesn’t allow the sound to escape his lips. The possible weapons smugglers are in the room, he can hear them breathe, walk, smoke. The only reason they can fit into the wall is that it is an older property with multiple additions thus the layout and architecture allow space for them to slip out of sight.

Peter cannot move any farther into the wall since a strut is right in front of him. Neal twists to try and get away from the nail poking his ribs, but it pushes into him all the same. The suspects gather in the kitchen and from their conversation it seems as if they are not about to leave. Neal frowns and tries to get Peter’s attention by shifting his foot over to kick Peter’s shoe. Peter turns his head, though it must be a painful process, to look at Neal. He gives him a face which telegraphs to Neal to keep silent. Neal mouths a word. Peter shifts his eyes back and forth.

Neal turns away from Peter and to the light of the hole so that Peter can see him this time. He mouths it again. Phone.

Peter tries to move his hand over to his jacket, but there a pipe in the way and he can’t free his arm. He indicates that he cannot successfully retrieve his phone from his jacket pocket. Neal nods. It will be up to him then.

Peter faces the inside wall of the house while Neal faces the opposite or the outside wall. With only the slant of light coming from the split in the wall that they crawled through, Neal spies a glimpse of the side of Peter’s face, his shoulder, the length of his arm. Neal moves his hand toward Peter feels his way over a broken cross beam of the wall and touches Peter’s belt. He snakes his hand upward, realizes why Peter cannot get his arm any further than mid-chest – there is a pipe or something in the way.

He pushes against Peter’s belly and forces his arm up. The pipe scores the back of his hand; skin tears away. He muffles his cry and looks away from Peter as he goes by feel instead. As he gets to Peter’s chest, where the pocket of his jacket and the wanted phone are, Neal feels the pipe rip away at his sleeve. He has to pull back, slide his hand away. He needs to take his jacket off, make his arm as thin as possible.

The suspects mumble about some plan. He ignores it; this is supposed to be white collar crime not big freaking bloody dirty crime. Shuffling off his jacket is more of a problem than he first conceived in the cramped space. Peter reaches over and yanks at his cuff to help him. He hitches his shoulder and somehow they are able to get enough room for Neal to shimmy the damn thing off – at least one arm.

Neal ventures to the phone again. This time the pipe’s edges rip open his shirt sleeves and split his skin not only on his hand but his arm. He hisses but gets to Peter’s jacket pocket. His elbow locks into place, he’s stuck. He has the phone and Peter nods.

Searching the keyboard, Neal presses Peter’s emergency code. He has to use Peter’s phone to do this, his does not have this capability. It is too bad this wasn’t an official surveillance operation. One or both of them would have had an ear bud or another form of communication link. It had been a routine, look-see. All they have is the phone and Neal’s anklet.

It takes forever for Neal to figure out each number, for him to key it into the phone with the needed keystrokes. It is a small mercy that Peter doesn’t have a touch screen keypad on his phone. Now all they have to do is wait it out and hope the FBI doesn’t storm into the house without warning.

*oOo*  
It takes all of thirty minutes for the bureau to show up at the front door. Peter considers this good time considering it is closing in on rush hour traffic and the house was some distance from the office. They are still tucked into the wall, listening to their suspects as they weigh their options. Of course when Diana and Jones knocked on the front door, no one answered. Peter only discerned it was them from the calls and warnings.

Gunfire broke out and Peter felt like his skin went up in flames, thinking of his team in danger. It is now thirty minutes later, the suspects are holed up in the kitchen area with the small armory to support them. Peter cannot make out from their conversation how many agents surround the house.

The small cracks in the plaster board lend some light to their cubby hole, but not much. He can see the glint of Neal’s eyes, and occasional touch of light on a cheek or his mouth. Neal learned if he positioned his head toward the light but away from him that Peter can actually see his mouth and therefore make an attempt at reading his lips. Unfortunately, Neal only has a bit of light to work with shining on Peter’s face, so replies are difficult if near to impossible.

A phone rings in the kitchen; Peter surmises it must be one of the suspect’s cell phones. He wonders how Jones figured out the number, but decides to worry about that little trickery later as he tries to catch what their suspects are saying.

“Get the fuck off my property,” one says. He has a deep voice that sounds like he smokes too much and might be older, probably in his sixties. Peter dubs him the Smoking Man. There is obviously a reply because Smoking Man answers, “Fuck off, this is my property. Possession is nine tenths of the law, ain’t it?”

Peter waits and looks over to Neal. He presses himself against the plasterboard of the wall, eavesdropping as well.

“There ain’t no fucking FBI agents in here. We ain’t done nothing wrong.”

Peter sees Neal look down at his feet. He cannot see it, of course, but the tracker is still working. It shines green, Peter is fairly certain, but it does have a three foot radius. They know that at the very least Neal is in the house.

The phone must have been disconnected because he hears Smoking Man toss it onto a counter top or a table and say to his friends, “Search the place, they think someone’s in here.”

Everyone leaves and Neal shifts as if he’s about to try and disengage his hand from Peter’s chest, even if it means stripping more skin from his arm. Peter pushes himself against Neal to stop him.

Neal stops and Peter sees the recognition in the eyes as he suddenly understands Smoking Man is still in the room. There are some shuffling noises and some long minutes later the others report that the house is empty.

Neal sighs and nods. He mouths – What now?

Peter could try and answer, but it would be too complicated to try and tap out in Morse code to Neal. He will have to wait and see it play out.

The phone rings again.

Smoking Man answers, “I ain’t got no FBI in here.” He waits and answers. “No, we ain’t got no one else, no one at all. It ain’t your fucking business. Now get off my property.”

The phone call is ended and Peter slumps against the wall. The agents are not going to leave, especially since their brilliant captors already fired on federal agents. There is probably a whole SWAT team grouping outside the house right now.

They are in for a long night.

*oOo*  
Hours later, Peter’s legs feel like jelly and his knees ache. Both of their phones have vibrated several times over the length of their stay in hotel stuck in the walls. Neither of them has answered or even tried to since it would just put them in danger of discovery. A few times, he caught Neal with an expression that could only be described as scheming and he’d had to shift his foot and kick him.

Peter is certain the teams outside of the house will allow the situation to drag onto just before dawn. They want the suspects tired and more apt of make mistakes. After a long tense night, the agents will hit on all fronts. Peter’s concern lies in the fact it might come down to a fire fight and walls have a way to get peppered with bullet spray.

As the night slips by and Smoking Man begins to ignore the calls on his phone, Peter notices something warm against his chest. At first he thinks it might be the pipe that locks him in place but then he realizes Neal’s arm is not only warm, but there is a slight tremor to it.

He looks at Neal and sees the con-artist has his head leaning against a strut and his eyes are closed. He pushes forward to put pressure on Neal’s arm. Neal jolts awake but doesn’t look at Peter. Instead he keeps his face turned away and mouths – what?

Peter can handle this one. He lifts his hand and taps out a rhythm on Neal’s leg. In Morse code, he asks, O-K?

Neal nods and says nothing more.

Peter calculates how long they’ve been stuck in the wall. He assumes that since the bureau showed up it might be about five hours or so. He has to flip backwards in his memory. It was at least an hour or so before they were able to signal his team, and the team gathered the response. So, he thinks maybe six to eight hours.

It occurs to him that Neal might be hurt. When they were investigating the open house, Peter and Neal were separated for a total of ten minutes, maybe. Did Neal get hurt? Maybe he is just over tired, Peter thinks.

It cannot be it. Neal’s endurance is legendary. It is rumored that he hid in the ventilation shaft of a museum with his stolen goods all night long until the museum opened up again and he walked out the front door with his stolen goods in tow and no one the wiser. Well, a little wiser because the thief actually tipped his hat to the surveillance camera as he left the building.

He waits a little while longer. His phone vibrates again. He hopes to hell Diana or someone at least notified Elizabeth. The phone is still in Neal’s hand and he jars when it pulses in his hand. Without thought, he automatically presses the answer button.

“Peter? Bob, I was wondering if that offer to help with the floor install was still good?” Peter recognizes the voice of one of his neighbors with whom he plays basketball.

Peter chews down on his tongue not to curse at Neal for opening the line. Neal realizes his mistake and cuts the line.

“Did you hear that?” Smoking Man says. Peter hears chairs move and rumble over the tiled floor. A loud crash bangs against the floor boards; Peter feels it in his feet. “Someone’s in the God damned house. Fuck. Didja look in the basement?”

“Yeah, yeah, basement, upstairs.”

There’s a pause and with it Peter holds his breath. He feels Neal’s freeze as if even the slightest movement will give them away.

“Shit, you ever see that Aliens movie?”

Peter ceases his brow. Aliens?

“They were in the damned ceiling,” Smoking Man says.

“Should we shoot it?”

There’s a scuffle and someone cries out. “You fucking idiot. Sure shoot it and they’ll come in here with guns blazing. We gotta find ‘em and negotiate our way outta here. Rip it apart. Rip the ceiling open.”

They hammer at the ceiling with anything they can find, Peter thinks. He listens as huffs and curses continue. The ceiling tiles fall in a cascade of thunks and plunks.

“Ain’t nothing in here,” one says. Peter dubs him Weasel since his voice is higher pitched and he always sounds like he’s about to piss himself.

A pause of silence then another voice chimes in. “Ah, come see this behind the fridge.” His heart drops into his stomach and flips as they find the space he’d originally indicated as a hiding spot. “There’s a hole in the wall here, pretty big.”

He can see Neal whisper, “Damn.” He also notices for the first time a slight sheen of sweat gleaming over what he can make out of Neal’s face. It’s warm in the wall, but not that hot.

In seconds he hears the refrigerator angled out of the way and they attack the wall. He sees the shaft of light from the hole blocked, then a form reach in. He cannot make out what happens next but Peter glimpses the faint shadow of Neal struggle, feign, and kick. Fighting at a disadvantage, Neal fails to keep them at bay and they drag him from the wall.

“Fuck, who the hell are you?”

“FBI?” Neal says. His voice sounds off to Peter, strained. There is the distinct sound of a booted foot slamming into an abdomen. Neal groans out a gulp of breath. “Shit, look he’s bleeding all over the floor. Did you shoot him?”

“What? No, Christ, he musta done that to himself in the wall,” Weasel says.

Bleeding? Neal had been wounded and never told him? No wonder his state the past hour, no wonder he mistakenly answered the phone.

“Is he gonna die?” Weasel is saying.

“How the hell should I know, you see anywhere I went to medical school, you asshole.” That’s Smoking Man, Peter identifies.

“Listen, you have me now,” Neal gasps out a breath. “Call the agents out there and tell her you want to negotiate a deal.”

“Hey what the hell is this?”

“God damned it, that’s a tracking anklet.”

Another fight breaks out and he cringes as he hears Neal cry out for them to stop. Tension knots in the pit of his belly, twists and turns so that he is nearly vibrating with it.

“No fucking way you’re FBI. You fucking led them to us,” Smoking man says and there is another sound of knuckles against flesh.

For a brief moment, Peter remains paralyzed as the blows rain down on Neal. The exclamation of pain steal past any barriers he has and cracks open his anxiety, his terror for Neal. He can’t let it continue, damned protocol and what he should or should not do. He calls out, “Idiots, he’s my consultant.”

“What the fuck? The place is crawling with ‘em!” Smoking Man commands the lot of them to knock down the walls.

In a sea of dust and splinters, they free Peter from his prison. Someone grasps his arm and yanks him from behind the pipe. He only grunts as nails and beams grab and tear at him. He doesn’t have enough time to reach his gun, and they disarm him, and then toss him on the floor next to Neal.

Neal curls in a ball with his tousled locks over his face, but Peter can still make out the edge of a grimace as he struggles to hold back the pain. Peter places a hand on his shoulder but Neal startles then settles when he realizes it’s only Peter.

“Take it easy, buddy,” Peter mumbles but Smoking Man, who is about sixty from the looks of him and his skin folds and wrinkles over his face, orders him to shut up. Peter glances at the other two men and judges they are probably the man’s kin with the high likelihood they are his sons.

Smoking Man grabs the phone and redials the last incoming call. “I got ‘er men. I’m gonna start shooting off parts if you don’t get off my fucking property.”

Smoking Man indicates to one of the younger men to tie them up as he listens on the phone. “I ain’t got no demands except for you to get off my property.”

It is then Peter sees the face of one of the sons and recognition kicks in. He is the one who hasn’t spoken but a few words in the last hours. He’s the victim of the mortgage fraud. Peter isn’t sure what the hell is going on anymore. The cache of guns, the fortress like appearance of the house, the crazed Smoking Man. It dawns on him that the kid probably called the FBI to see if he could stop what was happening with his father before the situation exploded but was too late. His father planned a Branch Davidian style sit in in the middle of New York City.

“Dad, maybe we should consider-,” Calvin says but is cut off when his father slaps him.

Peter turns his attention back to Neal. He needs to assess how serious Neal’s injuries are, especially the wound on his side. It looks like something speared Neal in the flank some time ago. A bloody mess stains his shirt. His arm looks like he’s been dragged by a car through a gravel pit; the result of retrieving the phone. He has new bruises and scrapes from being beaten by the Lowerys. He glances at the phone, his phone which is across the floor and knows there is no way to get to it now. Neal’s jacket is gone so he has to assume his phone is as well.

They have hours before the team will storm the house. Calvin and his brother follow their father’s instructions and hoist both Peter and Neal into chairs, tying them to the frames. Neal smirks and blinks at Peter as if to say – yeah right this will hold me. Peter only shakes his head to say – don’t try anything.

The phone rings again and Smoking Man aka Dad answers and so begins the long night of useless negotiation.

*oOo*  
Peter eyes Neal as his shoulders sag and his head lolls against the cupboard. He spots the sudden shudder run up Neal’s spine, sees the flush of his cheeks. The night has drawn out and lead to some sort of potent infection. How many hours are they at now? Peter glances out of the window and the sky colors pinks with violets. Soon he wants to say to Neal, but his partner keeps his eyes closed. Peter knows he isn’t sleeping, not even close.

At one point during the night, Peter tried to convince Dad that it would be fortuitous for both Peter and Neal to be placed near the back window. There were no shades there and Peter told them any attempts to come in through the back would be halted if they saw hostages in the way. Dad with his ever present cigarette hanging out of his thin lips disagreed and stowed them to the side of the kitchen where they were hidden from view.

Peter smiles. They are also out of the line of fire. It will be less than an hour now, and Peter wonders if Neal will make it. On the floor underneath Neal’s chair, a small pool of blood puddles. It drips, slow and easy from Neal’s side. Peter can only be thankful that at the very least it is a slow bleeder. What worries him is that it hasn’t closed yet.

The phone rings, which startles everyone in the kitchen. It hasn’t rung in hours. Dad answers and grumbles at his sons to watch them. Calvin looks at them with something crossed with fear and sorrow. Peter wishes he could have approached him during the night, but the three stayed close and tight, their father commanding every move. At no time were they left alone with one of them.

Dad curses on the phone, calls the agent a few choice names, and damns their offer of food. Peter nods, that was the last phone call. The team will burst in soon. He has to warn Neal.

Leaning over, Peter murmurs, “Neal?”

“Hmm?”

“How’re you doing?”

“Great, just great,” Neal says as he opens one eye, the other is swollen shut. His lips are cracked and thick from the bruise along his cheek and eye.

“Its morning,” Peter says and hopes to hell Neal can put the pieces together himself. He’s desperate to tell him the assault is imminent. Head down, Neal, stay sharp Neal. He can say none of them.

Neal focuses on Peter, there is a very slight change in his battered features and he grins. It looks horrid; more of a mockery of the expression but it tells Peter everything he needs to know.

The world bursts open in yellows and burning white light when the strike begins. Peter does everything he can to protect Neal and he fears it isn’t enough, or that it is too late.

*oOo*  
The yellow fields cover the horizon. He stands and sees the vast blue sky above him in an arc of perfect scope. He smiles when the lightest of winds touches his shoulders, his face. It feels like it is the first fresh air he’s breathed in years or maybe all of his life.

The tiny flowers carpet the rises and hollows. The green of the leaves are buried beneath their beauty and the cool air seems to make them more vibrate, more real. He leans down to touch the frail cups around him and the petals flutter like so many feathers in the wind. He cannot touch them, they are not real.

Yet they twist and contort about him. The vines slither and bend to form a noose about his throat. He tugs and pulls at it, but the leaves that were lost glove his hands and paralyze him. He collapses to the yielding blossoms below him. They shift and blanket him as if he never existed at all.

*oOo*  
Somewhere around midnight of the third day of sitting in the hospital watching Neal on a respirator Peter ages a degree. He feels his bones fragment and shadow, falling away into ashes. The gash on his side bled heavily, left Neal anemic, and in need of blood transfusions, but it was the deep gouges on his arm which led to the infection.

Most infections take days, not hours to overwhelm the system. Unfortunately, the bacterium invading Neal had its roots in something very nasty and could only be liken to MRSA on steroids. The doctors were struck dumb and couldn’t find anything that slowed down the infection. One doctor suggested a radical idea and they still conferred about whether or not they should gamble with the unorthodox treatment for someone so fragile of health.

Peter didn’t give a damn. He just wanted them to do something before Neal succumbed to the infection. He thinks the worse of it is Neal is still very cognizant of what is going on. Through fevered dreams and painful coughs, Neal drifts in and out of consciousness but he still understands what’s happening. He is never left alone, Peter, Elizabeth, Mozzie, June, Diana, Jones, Sara and even Hughes make their way to the hospital. Peter stays the longest – he refuses much relief. He needs to know they’ll at least try something.

The doctors finally decide they have no other choice and approach Peter with their plan. He gives them the go ahead and listens as they explain it to Neal. They are planning on taking out the respirator; it will be difficult for Neal. He will need to breathe through the pain and fluid in his lungs because the treatment will be worse than the disease of a while. When he vomits due to the treatment, he needs a clean passageway to let the blood and bile free.

They are going to poison him.

They call it, protoanemonin. It is a toxin found in buttercups, innocent little pretty plants. It will cause nausea, vomiting of blood, spasms, dizziness. The list goes on and on. The treatment schedule includes rubbing a balm on Neal’s infected arm while giving him antibiotics in high doses. As time progresses they will also give him small oral doses of the toxin.

Neal looks at Peter as they explain it. He cannot speak because the respirator mouth piece is still in place. His eyes are wide and round and terrified. He keeps flicking his left hand and kicking out his feet as if he’s about to take off and run. Peter grabs hold of his hand and squeezes. Neal nods.

*oOo*  
Lying in the field, Neal closes his eyes and allows the cool breeze to filter over him. Somehow he can smell the lightness of the air as if it is breaking open the world and seeping through all the holes and burrows. The tiny flowers caress his skin, and he smiles.

A few stray clouds stretch over the zenith of the sky. There is no sun in the sky, there is no need. The buttercups glimmer and glow in the day, the yellow borders on gold. He doesn’t bother trying to struggle away this time when the vines come, when the delicate flowers cover him as if he is in the grave. He lets them wrap him in shroud of sunlight, yet as he eases into the cushion of their petals they turn. The petals become thorns, the color bleeds to red and he screams as the vines impale him.

The vines and crimson flowers burst over and into his mouth. They steal his breath and root into his lungs. His body tenses and within him the plants coil like a snake. They strike with deep fangs and poison. His body spasms and he vomits up the vines, the leaves, the flowers in a stream of blood and bile. His mouth burns and his skin blisters.

He begs for relief. But there are only buttercup fields surrounding him and no one to save him.

*oOo*  
It takes three days to get the infection under control. Peter never wants to see medicine performed as if it is a medieval inquisition again. When the doctor’s declare the infection under control and are confident that Neal will not lose his arm or have organ failure, they pat each other on the back but say little to the man lying in the bed. Peter frowns and ushers them out as quickly as possible.

Spent and over tired, Neal smiles at Peter but he can see what it costs his friend. Peter pats his shoulder, tells him to rest, and promises not to leave. He doesn’t, not through that night or the next or even the next.

Recovery takes longer than Peter estimates but he gives Neal the time he needs. He watches as Neal finds his strength enough to eat, to drink, to clothe himself. He observes as Neal fingers the scars now marring his arm. He never asks what Neal thinks or if he has nightmares. He knows he has nightmares, he can only imagine the dreams threatening Neal. Peter’s own night time dreams consist of being stuck in walls and hearing Neal dying in the next room unable to move or to help him.

Maybe that is why Peter helps Neal a week after his release from the hospital. Maybe that is why two weeks after his release, Peter is still hanging around every day checking on Neal’s progress, though he pretends he has to because it is bureau business to know Neal’s status. Neal smiles and accepts Peter’s excuses.

When Peter walks into the apartment a month later Neal is getting ready for his return to work, he staggers to a stop to see the painting on the easel.

It is beautiful and disturbing. He hisses in a breath as he studies the large canvas. “Neal?”

Neal peers over his shoulder and smiles at Peter. He’s fixing his look in the mirror, like any normal day. “Yes?”

“Really?”

Neal nods. “Really, Peter.”

“Why?”

“Why not, is the better question,” Neal says.

“You sound too much like Mozzie,” Peter comments as he steps away from the scene depicted in the painting.

“And you sound like someone trying to ignore reality.”

“But you didn’t die,” Peter says as he turns back to the painting. Neal shrugs as he joins Peter in front of the easel.

“No, no I didn’t.” Neal adds, “Call it artistic license.”

Peter grimaces. The field of buttercups overlays an entombed man, a man buried alive and scratching at the edges of the coffin to leave large grooves. A man struggling for his freedom. “I guess, but he’s not dead either, really.”

“Nope, he’s not. That’s kind of the point, Peter.” Neal grabs his hat from the table, flips it on his head and says, “Shall we?”

Peter shakes his head and says, “You know, I’ll never understand art.”

Neal places his arm around Peter’s shoulders as they walk to the door. “Don’t worry about it, that’s why you have me.”

And Peter thinks he’s grateful and happy for that.

THE END

A/N: Okay I made up the MRSA on steroids then I added in the weird plant toxin (which actually has shown some potency against MRSA). I also accelerated the incubation time for my MRSA-steroids version. Call it artistic license. Hope you like anyway!  



End file.
